Ok, this is my very first thread here and I thought that I'd throw out a concept for Chaos Dwarf history, inspired by ancient Mesopotamian history, which I was a great fan of at an earlier age. This is both to get some input to prevent me from essentially laboring in an echo chamber for a potential WFRP project about Chaos Dwarfs but also to perhaps inspire others in their creation of fluff for the Chaos Dwarfs.

I've avoided going into much detail in order to avoid getting a post to long for people to read, so if there are parts that you would like more details on, please feel free to make a post and ask about it.

And this post really got alot longer than I had planned but I hope you can make it through it.

*****

Chaos Dwarf history

They Ventured into the East

In ages past when before Chaos came into the world there were hardy and brave adventurers who went east from the great mountains, into the distant east. On the way they found suffering and death but at their destination wealth in the ground, more wealth than they had ever seen. So they raised their keeps and tunneled down into the earth and slowly began to create a domain for themselves.

The Coming of Chaos and Rise of Hashut

The Dwarfs in the east are almost swept away as Daemons and their slaves falls on the Dwarfs but they call out to a hundred ancestors and its Hashut, a god once worshipped but now abandoned in the west, who delivers them. In dreams he comes to teach the secret way of magic to his sorcerer-priests. The Chaos Dwarfs successfully fight and barter for survival and stands victorious with the Chaos hordes.

Yet the victory for the Chaos Dwarfs was a dearly bought one for with the coming of Chaos the magical winds of Chamon and Aqshy flowed like water into their lands and even a breeze of Ghur founds its way.

Theocracy of Hashut

Rising to the occasion and consolidating their power the priests of Hashut gathered the Chaos Dwarfs and proclaimed intent and purpose over horror or disgust for what the magical winds had wrought with the Chaos Dwarfs. Many former Dwarfs had been to horribly warped. Those the priests could communicate with were allowed to live while those with their minds gone or reduced to Chaos-fueld malice alone were put down.

Thus the bull centaurs, the Taurus and Lammasu and many more strange creatures, wrought by Hashut's own hand the priests said, found a place with the Chaos Dwarfs who had themselves also been marked by Hashut as his chosen people.

Rise of Kings

But not all could be solved by the priests for there were warlike humans in the north, ogres in the east and Greenskins all around. Thus warriors rose in esteemed and need for the Chaos Dwarf society. And with schisms starting to rip apart the priesthood, for Hashut did not speak to his chosen people as he had in times of old, warriors started to take place of leadership and call themselves kings over their holds. Eager to win these kings over to their sides in their disputes with each other the priests refused to see how the kings and their warrior clans rose to influence and power.

And it was these kings who first saw the benefit of enslaving the Greenskins and then make overseers over their slaves in exchange for protection and part of the produce of the slaves.

Temple and Palace

This was the high water mark of the Chaos Dwarfs. For while the theological disputes started to burn down so the priests and warriors now found themselves joined in an alliance, and alliance where the kings held the highest place as Hashut's chosen representative on earth, elevated above all else.

The Dark Lands are a hard place, a cruel place where every day of life must be toiled for with hard work. But now the Chaos Dwarfs had found Greenskins to be their slaves and do the work for them. And enslave the Greenskins by the thousands the Chaos Dwarfs did so that they could live easier.

And the greatest of all the holds of the Chaos Dwarfs was Zharr Naggrund which grew and grew and whose king rose to be the Great King of all the Dawi Zharr. His court was cruel but industrious and every pleasent thing imaginable could be found there for his enjoyment. The lesser kings ruled their holds in envy and admiration for the Great King.

But nothing lasts for ever.

Fall of the Kings

Its said that the pride of the kings drew Hashut's ire and he raised his hand against them.

Great curses that shook the kings and, the priests say, Hashut finally took their forms and warped them into great black bearded bulls drive by hate, malice and hunger. The bulls devoured their kin and kith before they were either slain or captured on the orders of the priests as living proof of Hashut's will. Afterward the priests ascended and none raise their hands against them, for the will of Hashut was clear, and the Chaos Dwarfs feared revolt by the slaves if they would fight amongst themselves. And so they were silent.

The Folly of Priests

Now the priests claimed that it was the will of Hashut that had happened but regardless if it was the will of a god or the spell of priests, the warrior clans were decimated and the slaves grew unruly. In their hybris the priests decided that would make a new sort of warriors to protect them. A sort that would forever be their slaves and be even stronger than those that had been before.

So the Black Orcs were made. But these were not fit to be slaves. Instead they revolted in strength and almost throw down the entire Chaos Dwarf race, had it not been for the Hobgoblins. For the Hobgoblins who had first sided with the Black Orcs realized that after victory their lives of easy exploitation and violent victimization would be gone. So they turned on the Black Orcs and the tide was turned. The Black Orcs fought their way out and escaped into the west.

Greed of Priests

Gradually things settled down with the new theocracy gradually strenghtening its grip on society and choking much of the earlier creativity and invovation from outside of their ranks. All such was to the benefit of the priests and through them Hashut. Only in industry and in the sorcerious arts of the priests were new things made.

But even as so did the Chaos Dwarfs opened up in their dealings with the surrounding world, berefit as they were of the old warrior clans and so found that paying off raiders were often more useful fighting them. For they feared greatly that a single great defeat would entice their slaves to revolt. These increasing contacts also allowed Chaos Dwarf merchants to amass new and greater fortunes. And with great gifts the merchants gained the favor of the priests who greedily devoured all that was humbly placed before them even as more and more of the industry fell under the merchant lords' dominion as these grew richer and richer and giving greater and greater gifts to the priests of Hashut to make the priest decide on policy in the merchant's favor. And lately a gradual cultural loosening of the oppression is done under the patronage of the merchants.

Ending of the World

With the coming of Archaon the merchants convinced the insular priests of the benefits of trade with the Everchosen and through their work great wealth was brought to Zharr Naggrund in exchange for the aid the Chaos Dwarfs.

Excellent fluff. Really nice story and not too long at all (you should see my aos one). I love the shifts of power and the post hoc justification of mutations.
Personally I like more mythology and Hashut backstory. He is an odd god. In WHFB races ‘ake’ gods in their image, eg human Sigmar, elven gods, dwarven ancestor gods, a horned rat for rats, a skeleton for er skeletons, even daemons creatures of pure magic are given humanoid forms and weapons. Hashut is different. Yes he is imagined with a beard but nowhere described as dwarven or even humanoid. He is depicted as a bull god. Not only that but where other races make their gods in their image, Hashut makes dwarves in his! Tusks! Bull bodies! In my imagination Hashut is actually a ‘god’ from a different dimension marooned here in non corporeal form in hi semi-sentient city of Zharr Nagrond following some great carastrophe in his dimension. His precence is alien and anathema too life poisoning the world around hom. Hence the great skull land and the wastes of the dark lands. In dwarfs he finally finds a race that can tolerate hos baleful influence. Adopting them he both protects them from the worst of the winds of chaos in Zharr Naggrond and warps them himself. Furthermore to achieve and maintain physical form ge needs souls, hence a further need for slaves. This also explains cds cavalier attitude to chaos daemons as Hashut is only nominally a chaos god and cares not for them.

Oh dear, I am posting after wine again! Sorry about that. I really like your take and if anything would love more flesh om the bones of it.

Excellent fluff. Really nice story and not too long at all (you should see my aos one). I love the shifts of power and the post hoc justification of mutations.
Personally I like more mythology and Hashut backstory. He is an odd god. In WHFB races ‘ake’ gods in their image, eg human Sigmar, elven gods, dwarven ancestor gods, a horned rat for rats, a skeleton for er skeletons, even daemons creatures of pure magic are given humanoid forms and weapons. Hashut is different. Yes he is imagined with a beard but nowhere described as dwarven or even humanoid. He is depicted as a bull god. Not only that but where other races make their gods in their image, Hashut makes dwarves in his! Tusks! Bull bodies! In my imagination Hashut is actually a ‘god’ from a different dimension marooned here in non corporeal form in hi semi-sentient city of Zharr Nagrond following some great carastrophe in his dimension. His precence is alien and anathema too life poisoning the world around hom. Hence the great skull land and the wastes of the dark lands. In dwarfs he finally finds a race that can tolerate hos baleful influence. Adopting them he both protects them from the worst of the winds of chaos in Zharr Naggrond and warps them himself. Furthermore to achieve and maintain physical form ge needs souls, hence a further need for slaves. This also explains cds cavalier attitude to chaos daemons as Hashut is only nominally a chaos god and cares not for them.

Oh dear, I am posting after wine again! Sorry about that. I really like your take and if anything would love more flesh om the bones of it.

Brilliant. Well done!

Thanks for a quick comment.

Yeah, the mythological and theological parts of the history are not very developed yet, I will be the first one to agree to that.

The idea of Hashut as an ancestor god comes from a cool idea my GM had when he we played the WFRP Doomstones campaign where Hashut was indeed introduced as a forgotten, in the west, ancestor god and we came across a hidden and forgotten shrine in the World's Edge Mountains to him and lots of interesting interaction and stuff happened. But I will, if this project moves forward, try to read up more on the subject and then decide where I stand on it.

But anyway, I'm happy you like the political aspect of it. I thought that a history for the Chaos Dwarfs that was essentially only that "Chaos happened and they've been living in an theocracy since then with minimal change" was kind of boring so I wanted to explain a little of how things had come to where they are now.

Now Hashut has been with the Chaos Dwarfs since the start so that his priesthood would have a major role to play was obvious, but just like in Mesopotamia where the kings of the palace rose to take ultimate power from the priests of the temple, so I figured that something like that could have happened with the Chaos Dwarfs, but also that unlike in Mesopotamia the priests actually won out over the kings and warrior nobles among the Chaos Dwarfs.

And then of course its the industry aspect to the Chaos Dwarfs which means that economy should be more complex and probably shifting away from previous holders of power to the industrialists, in this case the merchants whom I imagine acts as a kind of glue to the rising industrious economical power house that's Zharr Naggrund as sorcerer-priests don't strike me as bankers, investers and economists and such. Thus I thought that the priests get more stuff from the industry through gifts and taxes than having an active part.

Yeah I get it!
I always thought the ‘modern ‘ cds were less meopotamian and more victorian. Highly class ridden religious society. Highly industrial. Small nation ruling vast empire through advanced technology and’native’ troops. Not to mention the big black beards. Instead of neo classical victorian architecture and fashion you have neo mesopotamian. A modern industrial nation adopting ancient fashions. A rising industrial class still subservient to an ancien regime/aristocracy/theocracy. You could see industrial clans building up their own daemonsmith cadres as an jntentional/accidental threat to the dominant theocrats. If you read Thommy Hs cd book in the rules development he had two types of lower ranking sorceror, pyrophants (fire sorcerors) and daemonsmiths. In your milieu you could see the pyrophants as the traditional theocratic lower ranks and the new ‘industrial’ daemonsmiths as the challengers supporting and supported by the industrial clans. Whether this ends in internal strife or a daemonsmith takeover of the theocracy from within cementing industrial pwer who knows.